


Strings (Being Pulled By Unknown Forces)

by ModernArt2012



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, Soulmate AU, Strings that Lead to Your Soulmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 11:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13363776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernArt2012/pseuds/ModernArt2012
Summary: The first strings Otabek ever sees are his parents. Tied from the base of his mother’s left pinkie to his father’s right pinkie, the soft blue is warmth and safety, a quiet connection that is firm and solid and sways between the two with every movement. It’s a compass to home, and Otabek falls a little in love with the color.Or, where Otabek can see soulmate strings.





	Strings (Being Pulled By Unknown Forces)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheart/gifts).



> For Feya. A soulmate AU.
> 
> Disclaimer: The story/myth is one I made up.

The first strings Otabek ever sees are his parents. Tied from the base of his mother’s left pinkie to his father’s right pinkie, the soft blue is warmth and safety, a quiet connection that is firm and solid and sways between the two with every movement. It’s a compass to home, and Otabek falls a little in love with the color.

 

His  _ apa _ notices the way his eyes track the strings between rooms, and tickles him. “Ah, my precious one, you see them too?” It’s a whispered secret, and Otabek knows. He nods, because  _ Apa  _ was alive before the city, knows the old stories of the land, and keeps them locked up tight in the journals she keeps. Then she tells Otabek to fetch her yarn - the thick yarn she makes his birthday sweater out of, the one she watches the other  _ апай _ at the market with her sharp hawkeyes make before she chooses a ball to dye - and she tells him a new Old Story. 

 

She sing-tells about how the people, when they were nomads back in the oldest of Old Days, longed for the Matches to their souls, to find them and  _ know _ . The Earth heard, and made it so the threads of fate that bound them to their most important people were dyed in every color of the rainbow, one per pair. The people found their Matches, followed the thread to the end, the ones who were most important, but grew complacent and sometimes rejected their rightful Matches for others when their Match was too ugly or too lowly born or some other fault they were not ready to see past. The Earth grew angry, and raged against the people who were ungrateful for the Earth’s doing, and so the Earth wiped the sight from all but a few humans, so that those humans would remember and help people find their perfect Match. Just so, his  _ Apa _ told him, and now that he knows what he sees, he has to be very careful. Many times, people are not ready to know their truth, and most are unwilling to believe. But if he is smart, he can see, and he can know, and he can follow his own to where it will lead. 

 

As he grows older, Otabek learns this is hard-won wisdom - what is right is often something that takes time to build, to grow into and step forward together. The students in his class, they play at crushes and love and dating, but none of them are right and it is better to not draw attention to this fact when no “relationship” lasts longer than a week. He has better things to do, like ice skating. It’s still interesting to watch the Mismatches stroll by, the Matches and guessing where they are in a relationship - are they still new, are they growing firm and solid, are they settled, are they full of passion or are they quieter? It’s fun to guess when he’s on the bus going to practice.

 

He grows and excels on the ice, enough that his parents send him to camps and when that whets his appetite, they send him farther and farther as he progresses. The rink is full of noise and color and the sharp chill of ice and sweet stink of sweat. And sometimes the thin strings of color flash by, but not enough for Otabek to worry about, no details apparent. 

 

Until he goes to Russia. There he meets a soldier boy with eyes like storm glass, green and sharp, and the string on his finger leads to him. There is no time to ponder such revelations - he’s busy struggling at things the others are already good at, stoking his determination to be good, be best. But when he gets home, he confesses all to his  _ Apa _ , who coos and pets his head with strong hands. Otabek knows there are more people Matched to those of the same sex as themselves in the world, but he hadn’t thought he’d know so soon about himself. “Just because this boy is your Most Important, that does not mean sex, my precious one. You may yet find you are uninterested in such things, or you like girls. But this boy is your pole, hmmm? Your Most Important Person. Maybe not just yet, but one day. When the time is right.” 

 

He grows more, meets more people, like the vibrant Emil with his cool grey string, and JJ and his blood red, Leo with his more mellow pale mint, and all of them stretch out into the distance. Otabek wonders if they know their Matches yet, if maybe they’re Matched to someone with more than one Match; not common but not uncommon and not easy by half.

 

He’s with JJ long enough to learn JJ’s string leads to Isabella, one of his fans but also strikingly gorgeous and famous in her own right. He meets Viktor Nikiforov once, and sees the brightest purple he’s ever seen stretching from Viktor’s pinkie. He sees Yakov then too, again, his yellow-green thread pointing towards where Otabek knows Russia is, where his own string leads. Chris is a deep burnt orange, what some would call rust, or copper if it were metallic. He wonders idly on the flight back if the colors mean anything, if the colors mean something in particular for each pair. He thinks about the colors he has seen, about the people they are attached to and the pairs he has seen. He should ask his  _ Apa _ when he calls home tonight. 

 

His  _ Apa _ spends the call making sure he’s doing well, and that she’s got the right address to send his sweater. It’s cold in Canada, after all. She doesn’t answer him about the colors though, and that’s alright. His  _ Apa _ isn’t as young as she used to be, and she deserves all the rest she can  get.

 

Still he’s gotten relatively good - not the best, not while Viktor still lives and competes - but good enough to come home. And so he sets off back home, coach in tow, and sets up his home rink in Almaty again. The colored strings are more busy here, tangled and interwoven as all the people crowd together and interact. In Canada, things were less... hectic. This feels more right.

 

Then comes the season, and the Grand Prix. And that whirlwind becomes something that takes him, insulates and cocoons, until the ice is the only thing he can think of. The strings pass out of mind unless he’s confronted with them, until the Final in Barcelona. He sees JJ and Isabella, blood red and firm. Then he sees Yuri. He’s taller now, his look is different, but Otabek would know those storm glass eyes anywhere. The color on their string though, is a deep inky yellow, the color of old gold, and Otabek wonders if now is the time. The murmur is his head tells him not quite yet, and Otabek waits. Still, it’s good to see Coach Yakov and the tall woman by his side look close after they seemed to be drifting apart. Their string is the same yellow-green as her eyes, cat-eyes. 

 

Otabek follows his instinct when it tells him that it’s time, when it leads his motorcycle after the Angels and to the alley where his Match hides. They go to Park Guell, and Otabek speaks his truths. He has a friend now, in his Match, and knows this is a good first step. 

 

Maybe one day Otabek will tell Yuri about the strings; if they ever reach a point where they are as tightly woven as Viktor and Katsuki, who are tied to the same fate, the same string looped between them and will probably be very happy if they learn to talk properly. Maybe Yakov can give them pointers - Yuri tells him that Yakov and Lilia recently talked things out, and are working at rebuilding their relationship- and maybe Otabek should heed that advice in advance, about communication, and listening. But that day may be long in the future, for now Otabek has a competition to win. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with me on [ tumblr](http://modernart2012.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Also, I love concrit, so if there's something you feel that could have been done better, please let me know down in the comments!
> 
> Apa means "grandmother" in Kazakh, апай can be taken to mean "aunt", but literally is "honored older sister".


End file.
